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Eugene is going through another one of his dispositions, majorly spacing out while rearranging the book display for the eleventh time. Something in the arrangement puts him off, and he can’t figure out what. He stands back a few steps in an attempt to clear the active muddle of his thoughts when he hears someone speaking, distantly.
“Is that you, Mr. Harrow?”
The words become clear at once, nearly giving him an aneurysm. A fierce shiver runs down his spine, striking something in him he thought long buried, the tone and timbre of the voice adding to his reaction. He turns rapidly, heart fluttering, and knocks over a precariously stacked tower of books at his feet. It’s of little importance.
He comes face to face with the one and only Dr. Finck, surprise and worry etched into his eyes. He blinks placantingly at Eugene, like always. The older man’s hand is outstretched non-threateningly as if he's braced to settle a spooked animal. As if he’s done this many times before, which is most certainly he has.
What an improbable moment.
Eugene scans his former therapist from head to toe. There are subtle differences in the man - he's lost some weight, and there's white hair scattered in his beard now. It suits him. He also focuses on what's unchanged, from the doc's familiar pair of glasses to the calculated gaze he shoots Eugene from behind those narrow lenses.
“Hi, doctor Finck,” he says, breathing out all the air in his lungs. “Surprised to see you here. How long has it been?”
It feels like double-dealing. Eugene knows exactly how long it's been: six years and a little over two months. There's a calendar in his kitchen that religiously keeps the count. He rubs the side of his neck, a tick that he never managed to overcome.
“Quite a while, I assume. Time is a funny thing. It feels like yesterday you shook my hand at the end of the program,” the doctor smiles and moves to grasp his hand. Eugene grips back firmly.
They share a private smile before he looks over the man's shoulder to see a crowd slowly trickling in at the bookstore.
“You're here for the… uh, event?” Eugene asks, doubt lingering in his mind.
He and Dr. Finck lost contact as soon as his mandatory therapy sessions concluded, and he was declared “functioning within normal parameters”. The Ministry of Happiness sent him offers on optional assessments afterwards, but Eugene declined them. He never found the time to reach out again, and supposedly, neither did the doc.
“I was passing through the city, but yes, when I heard you were giving a speech for your launch, I decided to stay a little longer,” the older man says, moving away to find a seat. “Good luck with it.”
He will need it, considering there are several people still attempting to get inside. Now, if only his erratic heart would calm the fuck down.
Eugene turns back to the stand and composes himself. Multiple copies of his book greet him, all signed by him earlier. “Rue Valley, the Coral Destiny empty fort.” His name is elegantly printed at the bottom of the page. He picks one up, its weight grounding him to the present. He contemplates it once more.
Most of the cover is taken by a person dressed as an astronaut, sitting atop a cliff that overlooks a valley, the sky in the background alight with all shades of red and orange. Except, it’s no ordinary valley and most certainly, no ordinary sky. Eugene had been very specific about the artwork and even now he still gets goosebumps when he looks at it.
The angle is what affects him most, because in his mind, that is Judy on the cover, head high and shoulders squared. The "viewer" regards her powerful stance from below, from the bottom of the valley. The desolate place where Eugene began half his time loops, where he fell in desperation. Where he found Frank and held onto his hand, praying that he could breathe life into the broken man.
But the dead stay dead, and both Frank and Judy have long been gone. Eugene is alive, and he decided long ago that he wants to remain so. He bows his head to their image, puts the book back and turns to face the crowd.
“Good evening. I assume by now you know who I am, but allow me to reintroduce myself…”
The audience is graced with a pithy summary of his mediocre early work, not enough for the big publications; then, his shortcomings as a content writer, isolating him in the industry and later, the randomized assignment to a therapist residing in a motel in Bothwood, which led to his in-depth investigation into Coral Destiny and Commander Judy Reznyk.
Finally, his rise as first a local ‘hero’, then the valley’s and the county’s savior. How he pushed for the well-being of the residents. How he stopped a catastrophe.
Eugene knows much praise has been sung and written about his journey but that’s the information he fed the general public, a facade he carefully built to protect himself. The intimate parts of his journey, he keeps to himself.
Few know that he played the piano for Anitta, rousing a lost emotion in the woman. How he indulged her daughter in all sorts of conversations, and kept Ben away from the temptation of drugs. How he fixed Riley a cup of coffee and partook in Maxine’s family history telling, with whom he ended up bonding over similar views. The two of them still text occasionally, the woman being profoundly grateful that Eugene found her father, Walter, wandering the mines in a fit of dementia.
But back to what they came here to hear.
“But sometimes, you have to listen to your guts. It told me I had to look deeper,” he sweeps the audience with his gaze.
A certain “Mr. Harrow” made it on national news a week after his against-the-clock intervention at Coral Destiny. Armed with loads of information and proof, Eugene climbed the corporation's ladder in a whopping fifteen minutes - with the help of the chief of Food and Medicine department - to reach the mission commander's office and put a stop to a potential incident that would have wiped the valley. It helped that the man was reasonable and gave them the benefit of the doubt.
The SAR mission had been postponed, and the research officers were tasked with a more in-depth analysis of the craft that their astronauts were supposed to drag back into the atmosphere.
“Guess what? Commander Reznyk’s wandering Lander had accumulated all sorts of gases and debris, making the spacecraft a ticking bomb. If the craft were to be dragged into landing, the ending would have been tragic," he ends gravely. The people who stare at him are sombre, understanding the hypothetical disaster.
For Eugene, it had not been hypothetical. He’s lived through endless time loops resulting in the same bitter end: the sky ablaze in flames, waves of rapid boiling winds rolling over him. No one knows that. He doesn’t think anyone would believe him.
Dr. Finck would understand, his treacherous overworked brain supplies.
It's a thought he had six years ago as well. But between finding Frank's wrecked car and the break-in at Coral Destiny, Eugene figured out that it was easier to lie. He was a master of that craft, among others. The therapy sessions that followed hadn't been… genuine, to say. He had enough of the ‘real’ ones during the loops which had him reset on the shrink’s couch. Gideon Finck had been helpful as a mental health practitioner in keeping him sane. The older man never commented on Eugene's apparently random ramblings nor kicked him out when he extended the session for more than half the allotted time.
All in all, Mr. Harrow appears on official documentation as a patient who went through only ten mandated sessions without issue. In reality, he's spent hundreds of hours in the doc's office, sometimes working on himself, but most times massively dissociating. It was Dr. Finck who had always guided him back to reality. Firmly, and gently.
When time finally began flowing past the harrowing 8:47 PM, Eugene wasted not a moment. He spent two more weeks in the valley, wrapping up his long-lasting adventure, then drove south back to his apartment.
With a plan.
“I locked myself up in my room and wrote non-stop for six months straight. I published every aspect of the investigation through a third-party, to avoid leaving my place. I did not go out, did not talk to anyone. I knew it was a trap I was laying for myself, and in a way, I had to. The truth had to be written and brought to light,” he muses, leaning back in his chair. “I've spoken often of my publishing process, but I never mention how I broke out of that isolation.”
His eyes roam the participants and land on Finck's face. The man stares at him for a moment, then his eyes crinkle minutely, encouraging. Eugene launches into a panegyric of the benefits of therapy. He knows that, at the end of the event, it was the doctor who clapped the loudest.
He sees off his audience, thanking them, shaking hands, and taking selfies. His former therapist hangs back until he's done, and as if reading his mind, invites him out for a chat.
Eugene counters with an invitation for dinner and a drink at his hotel's restaurant, to which Dr. Finck surprisingly agrees. They walk the short distance in comfortable silence.
The realization that he has missed the other man dawns on him. The conversation over dinner unfolds naturally, easily. More about Dr. Finck's recent career and published autobiography, and less about Eugene's lingering demons.
“I've read that chapter on the isolation of first settlers so many times, I could recite it back to you,” he says playfully, along with a bite of food.
The admission flusters Dr. Finck a bit, but he waves it off professionally.
“In a way similar to your description of the consuming loneliness you've experienced after going to war with the big corporations,” he replies smoothly. “I take it that my work has helped you navigate it more easily?”
Ouch, okay. Right on point.
The man isn't a Ministry of Happiness authorized specialist for naught.
“It certainly has,” Eugene runs a hand through his hair. “All you've taught me, techniques and whatnot, I make use of them to this day.”
He downs the rest of his drink, enjoying the burn it leaves behind. The other man leans away, as if taking in the whole picture that is Eugene Harrow.
“Mr. Harrow, while probably I won’t be your therapist again, I am still able to listen and offer you some advice,” Dr. Finck says and there’s an intensity to his words that sparks some meager hope in him.
The thing is, Eugene had been born and raised a loner - never quite fitting in any groups, gravitating around people but seldom allowing them past his high-built walls. New acquaintances had to be kept at a ten-foot emotional distance minimum. The sole concept of casual chatting with someone had been so foreign to him.
Before Rue Valley, that is.
He’s not sure when the doctor passed the threshold he’d been upholding. Likely around the fortieth loop. Definitely after the Alexander shitshow, when the therapist quieted his recurring panic attacks.
“Well, doc, if you want to be my friend, I must insist you at least call me Eugene,” he answers with a wink but badly cringing inside.
Finck bursts out laughing, and he joins him. They switch to first names for the rest of the drinks.
Eugene walks Gideon out late in the night, waiting by his side for the man's cab to arrive. When it's time to go, they shake hands.
“Don't be a stranger now,” the doctor says warmly.
He chuckles in reply, and his drink-dazed mind decides that a handshake is not appropriate enough for the occasion. Eugene steps back and awkwardly holds his arms open, inviting for an embrace.
Gideon‘s bushy eyebrows shoot up into his forehead. He cocks his head to the side, then shrugs. He opens his arms.
They had hugged previously. In the loop in which Eugene discovered the truth about the doctor's past, when caught in the act of snooping, he dashed forward to pin the older man into a forceful hug. Together they waited for the end. He hadn't tried again after that. It felt too… impudent. But it had been the first time he didn't feel utterly hopeless in his misery.
It's the same feeling now. One of the older man's arms wraps around Eugene's waist, while the other snakes itself between his shoulder blades, caging him in. It's comforting and so desperately intimate. It's easy to lie his head on his former therapist, no, scratch that, on his friend's shoulder. Just for a moment. Gideon hums at the motion, tapping his back rhythmically.
They stay wrapped around each other until the taxi pulls up.
“Still with me, Mr. Harrow?”
“Yes, doctor. Until the end,” he promises.
-
He somehow keeps that promise.
Eugene sits sprawled out on the bed, listening to Gideon busy himself in the bathroom. They have checked into the motel earlier, and are now getting ready for a drive to Kuiper Belt to meet up with people. Robin set them up in his old room upstairs, welcoming them warmly as she passed over a shiny key card. Time had been kind to the receptionist as she remained the same joyful and exuberant person they knew.
They're back at the motel in Rue Valley for Frank's tenth death anniversary. Officially.
The reality is that Eugene has had to see it all again. To navigate the old and learn about the new. To feel the valley on his skin.
To come clean on what happened ten years ago.
“Ready to go?” Gideon says from the doorway, dressed smart-casual in neutral colors, as always.
The older man approaches the bed and sits on its edge, leaning over to press a kiss to his temple. Eugene lets the built-up reticence melt away. He reaches out to rest his palm on his partner's cheek, letting out a long, but decisive sigh.
“I think I’m ready to tell you… about what really happened here ten years ago,” he moves into a sitting position next to Gideon. “Will you hear me out?”
Will you believe me?
“Of course. Lead away.”